In early September, the United States banned companies like NVIDIA Y amd sell their artificial intelligence chips to China. In the case of the former, the measure directly affected the A100 and H100 GPUs, usually used for machine learning and image recognition tasks. However, Jensen Huang’s now have overcome the US blockade and re-established the export of their most advanced hardware to the Asian giant.
However, they have had to abide by the new rules established by the White House. Thus, they are still unable to market the originally vetoed components. But yes they are enabled to sell alternative versionsmodified to comply with government limitations.
Reuters reports that NVIDIA has already started offering the A800 GPU in China. It is a development based on the A100, but with limited features. “The A800 meets the US government clearance test for reduced export control, and cannot be programmed to pass it,” the company said.
According to the aforementioned medium, at least two Chinese companies that previously offered servers with the A100 GPU are beginning to offer versions adapted to the A800. The new hardware offers a chip-to-chip data transfer rate of up to 400GB per second, versus 600GB per second on the original model.
Of course, speculation regarding NVIDIA’s strategy has not been long in coming. Is that, after all, analysts agree that the A800 is nothing more than a slightly limited A100 to meet US standards, and in new packaging.
NVIDIA does not want to lose China, one of its main markets
It stands to reason that NVIDIA is doing what it can to comply with regulations surrounding the commercialization of its AI chips, without losing one of its most important markets. Only during the last trimester, China reported revenue of 400 million dollars to the Californian company.
Logically, it remains to be seen if the new A800 GPU succeeds in presenting itself as an alternative to the A100. After all, you’ll have the difficult task of proving that it can handle the same tasks as the original hardware while still delivering compelling results despite performance limitations.
The United States assures that the ban on the sale of artificial intelligence chips is related to the fear that China will militarize its use. From the White House they indicated in a timely manner that the measure sought to “mitigate the risk” that the hardware could end up in the wrong hands.
The blocking of the most advanced NVIDIA and AMD products was not well received by the Asian giant. As soon as the measure was known, the Chinese authorities came out at the crossroads of the American decision. They accused the Joe Biden administration of “undermine the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises” and the stability of industrial chains.